Cigar Smoke in 1943
by Annie Christ
Summary: AU. Oneshot. He ate two slices of wedding cake, drank champagne, and wrote love letters, but the one thing Roxas could never do was put him last.


_For Beau_

The match used to light Axel's cigar gave off a sulfur-ridden afterthought that lingered only long enough to breeze over the earthy scent of blazing tobacco. Sensitive eyes, Roxas' blue eyes, watered as he coughed and waved the thick smoke with its aged musk away from his baby face. Having not slept more than a handful of minutes the night before, his skin prickled and he rolled his leaking eyes to the side with a chest-wracking cough. Spatial efficiency was on his extensive list of personal defects, but had he been any taller he would've snatched the cigar out of his friend's hand and played Axel's First Colonoscopy with it.

Giving the older boy a dangerous stare, he pressed his spine against the trunk of the property's oldest maple tree as his copy of _The Little Prince_ threatened fall off his upper thigh. When he'd spotted the redhead approaching with his ocean-jumping strides he had made the conscious decision to mark his page with a crunchy leaf. This was mainly because Axel wasn't one for silence. The farmer's son's mouth ran a mile a minute, and there was a constant snarky edge dripping from his tongue like molasses to punctuate every conversation. Commentary about his miniscule assets, the way the sun glowed like smoldering charcoal along the sky, how Roxas should consider taking the bus to California with him; those were the typical subjects he filtered through with each visit. Since they'd met in the field that divided their families' properties there had been a touch of syrup to his tone and grit scraping the back of his throat like worn sandpaper. They were an assortment of characteristics that shouldn't have peacefully coexisted but did. At least, they did from Roxas' perspective, but after seven years of torrential friendship he was undeniably biased.

"I'm enlisted," Axel said with the sort of buoyant grin Roxas wanted to backhand off his mug. "Those Germans are going to lick the underside of my shit-kickers when I get there. You could come with me, you know? Helping your daddy run a fucking lumber mill isn't much of an excuse not to fight like the rest of us."

"We're contributing, which is why I'm not going. I'm doing my part." Roxas opened the book so that he wouldn't have to meet Axel's accusing face. "When do you leave?"

"Deployment's in two weeks." Axel exhaled and tugged the book out of Roxas' hands so that eye contact couldn't be avoided. Roxas bit back the want to admire the jade illumination behind his eyes with a scowl as he finally yanked the book from his grip. "Are you gonna miss me?"

The navy argyle sweater Roxas was wearing began to scratch his skin. The fabric vacuum-sealed his torso with intentions to asphyxiate, and the annoyance morphed from an itch into poison-tipped bristles entrenching his veins. Roxas couldn't bring himself to look Axel in the eye during the sudden ache, and he stared at the clumps of molding leaves directly past the man's scrutinizing face. It would've been convenient for Roxas' mother to holler from the back door, but she didn't and for once his mother didn't interrupt something between them. Had she, then they would've risen to their feet without continuing the conversation. Axel would have trekked through the yard with that familiar rotation of his hips, assumed his chair at the table the way he always did during dinner at Roxas' and his parents would've coddled the man's decision to go to war because all the boys were heroes for making the choices Roxas didn't have to. Only then would Roxas have been able to avoid answering Axel's selfish question.

There was no scapegoat for the moment, and he subconsciously rubbed his chapped lips together before grinding his molars. None of their friends had come home outside of a casket, and there were too many who would never come home at all. Roxas didn't want Axel to be intangible; a disregard through a posted list of MIAs. No matter how thick their bond was, Roxas knew he couldn't pretend he would feel close to Axel's consuming warmth when he was rotting in a trench alongside other decaying nobodies. Those olive features and hard humored expressions would be forgotten, and Roxas' chest tightened as he worked through his grief. Again, the typically reserved boy contemplated punching Axel because he wasn't just going to kill himself. He was going to kill Roxas. There was nothing for him in their small town without the man, and he was the only person who _understood_. Without him, Roxas was nothing but a number for the census bureau.

"Roxas…" Axel broached the silence before glancing over his shoulder to make sure Roxas' mother wasn't leaning out of the kitchen window. There were too many violently entangled branches for them to be seen. But either way he was paranoid, and with good reason. There were plenty of things wrong with what he was about to do. Axel grabbed Roxas' shoulder and squeezed. The cockiness dimmed and the cigar lay abandoned in a pile of damp leaves. "Promise me something?"

"As if I owe you any kind of promises..." His words flowed like a rock slide. Though, after too long a pause, he glanced up at Axel's face with an expression faded by the kind of disappointment only a vehement world could bring.

"I don't know how long I'll be gone." Axel's grip tightened. "But do us both a favor and marry one of those pretty girls your dad always wants to set you up with. She better be a real stunner with blond ringlets and eyes prettier than yours. Have a massive wedding with champagne and cake, and eat a slice for me. Make sure you get twenty babies out of her so someone will have me as an uncle, and paint your picket fence white because that's the kind of life people like you are supposed to lead. Love that woman with every ounce of you, and write her love letters twice a day before you send me anything. Kiss her goodbye every morning. Love her right, and on most days, don't even think about me. Put me last in your life from here on out, and I'll die the happiest man in the world. That's all I'm asking from you before I leave."

"Stop talking bullshit like—" Roxas was interrupted by the other boy's lips firmly pressing against his own, and without any resistance, Roxas' hands fisted the fabric of Axel's leather jacket until his nails threatened to rip clean through. Tears began shooting down his flushed cheeks like showering stars. He didn't want to make that promise to Axel because it made things definite. Even when he punched Axel's shoulder in mid-kiss, neither of them pulled away because this was an early goodbye. Had they waited until the last minute, then nothing would have been said, they knew. For some reason, Roxas was sorry. He didn't know why, but he had never wanted to apologize to another human being more than he did Axel. He wanted to be the one gunned down and strung up in barbed wire for the crows to peck clean, and he wanted Axel to trade places with him because he had a sense of self. The man with cinnamon spiced words and drive to pursue his own de facto destiny was his own person when Roxas couldn't think for himself beyond what book to read that week.

"Tell me you'll do all of that," Axel breathed the words against Roxas' lips before following with a chaste kiss. "Do that for _me_."

"I hate you for doing this." His words held heavy on the back of his throat before he finally sobbed. "I fucking _hate_ you."

"_Good_."

Taking that as Roxas' compliance, Axel let him go, lips still tingling, only to brush his fingers through blond hair and pick up the forgotten cigar. He rose to his feet, leaving Roxas with a sympathetic smile and a curt wave of two fingers. There was a sigh when he turned on the heel of his boot, and Axel strode away, pulling the box of matches out of his pocket. Roxas stared as he relit the cigar from a distance and he stuffed a sleeve into his mouth to muffle the sudden mournful scream that blistered the spongy walls of his throat. Ethereal wisps of smoke trailed behind the taller man like a ghost after he vanished into the front yard, and Roxas sucked in a stuttering breath as if a hand had ripped his heart straight from his chest.

He had been shot.

Roxas married Naminé in the summer of the following year beneath the same maple tree. There he ate two slices of wedding cake just as he had promised, but their children would never meet their Uncle Axel beyond the picture in the hall. He painted his fence white, cigar in mouth, and kissed his wife goodbye every morning. He composed the sincerest love letters for the woman he had exchanged vows with, and even when he couldn't do so daily he still strung the words through his mind like a desperate sonnet. The letters were senseless confessions of his adoration for her, and he apologized for all the misgivings she could never understand but silently appreciated. They told stories she had witnessed herself and fed into poetic desires they regularly shared. The letters filled her dresser drawers, shoe boxes, treasure chests and through it all she never once questioned why Roxas refused to use her name at the top.


End file.
